The Top 10% of income earners paid 71% of federal income tax

Sitting in an office making some phone calls. I wonder how much we could increase the pay of chinese factory workers if we cut the takehome pay of its
CEO in half... maybe from 300,000 down to 150,000 Hopefully that fool can manage to live off of 150,000 a year for sitting at a desk.

Do you think the rich just hatched that way? I know some did, but there are many many people who you would consider to be rich that have worked their
way up to their current positions. You don't start off as CEO.

My first job was working at a fast food restaurant. Then I waited tables throughout college. I sold appliances part time. I bartended. I've done
many menial labor/minimum wage jobs in my lifetime. Those were backbreaking jobs--definitely hard work.

Now, I have a doctorate. I make a lot more per hour than I used to, that is for sure. But guess what--I now have knowledge and skills that I didn't
have before.

I didn't like the minimum wage jobs, and I didn't like the minimum wage income. So I worked my way through college. Then I worked full time and went
on through graduate school. There were times that I worked full time (as a teacher), part time (bartending), AND went to graduate school part
time.

As I said, I am not rich (even a doctorate won't make a teacher rich!) But I realized early on that the kind of jobs that pay better are the ones
that you need specialized training for. So I worked my butt off until I had that kind of specialized training. I didn't stay in the first fast food
job I had, complaining about how hard I was working for so little pay.

And it ticks me off that people think me and my husband (who also teaches) should be glad to pay out 25% of our salaries so that it can be
redistributed. That's where I'm coming from. You go after the income of the top 1%, and the top 5%, and the top 10%--when do you come after ME?
When do you want 50% of MY income?

Yes, because the top 10% earn just over 80% of the wealth, this is why they pay 71% of the taxes. They've also received the lionshare of the tax cuts
over the last 40 years. The top 1% for example paid close to 70% of their taxes in the 70's, that was cut down over the years to 35% today. What's
more, the top 10% have been getting steadily wealthier over the years while the lower earners have seen little change in income, infact between 2007
and 2009 the earnings of the middle and lower classes declined by 4%, any guess how wealthier the wealthy got? online.wsj.com...

As for whether the wealthy are job creators, small business owners earn between $25,000-$188,000, this was from findings dated back 2009: www.payscale.com...=Small_Business_Owner_%2f_Operator/Salary

Yet we're so focused on making the economy confortable for money hoarders? I work for a small business, my employer would not be considered within
the top 10% yet he has recieved pennies compared to very wealthy over the last few years.

Even better source of money and a group that makes more money and pays less then the rich are corporations.
some corporations pay little or no federal taxes
Just look at the windfall profits the oil companies have made during the fake fuel shortages that they had run,

And they are setting up for another one this years that is just starting and may give us $5.00 a gal gas by summer
Its too is a fake shortage and guess what Obama will take the heat.

Hate taxes? Hate Big Government? Then you can move to glorious Somalia and enjoy "freedom" from taxes and government! The nirvana of a libertarian
paradise by the sea. Yes you can keep it all in Somalia.

The United States of Somailia? Wasn't that what King George was telling those tax hating big government hating Colonists? "Move to glorious
Somalia and see how far you get with the Gabroon Dynasty!"

Big government sycophants would be amusing if they weren't so oppressive.

Originally posted by jacklondonmiller
They should pay more and entitlements should be reformed.

And there you have it!
Could have come straight from the Obama administration. The wealthy need to pay their "fair share". And 71% isn't fair enough yet.

To the OP, nice.
Simple, clear and to the point.

It's not, it's clearly misleading. They pay more money, because they make more, but they pay a smaller percentage out of the money they earn than
the rest of us.

It just so happens that if you make more money a lower % ends up being a higher figure. This is how math works.

A simple example.

10% of 100 is 10.

10% of 200 is 20.

That means, 5% of 400 is also 20.

This means 5% of 800 is 40.

So if you make $800 and I make $100 and you pay 5%($40) and I pay 10%($10), you contribute more money, even though I paid in more money
on what I earned than you who made 8x what I did.

This is not fair, especially once you consider the fact that those with the $800 have more to spare, and those with the one hundred can barely live,
yet the ones with the $100 have to pay more on that $100, even though they can't really afford to.

The OPs Figure of 71% is the total amount of taxes paid, NOT the percentage of what they pay on what they earn.

It's really quite simple. If you don't do it this way, the finite amount of resources gets consolidated into the hands of the wealthy and the
government, leaving the rest of the country broke, amongst a myriad of other scams living along side of the tax codes and exemptions for those with
power money.

edit on 21-2-2012 by Laokin because: (no reason given)

the only fair way is if we have a flat tax and no other breaks or anything at all.

Unfortunatley the internet never forgets.... by not using everything you have to help the people around you is gonna put some large amounts of egg on
your face...

Someday all of those chinese workers are gonna have flying cars... you better hope that you didnt kill someones only love with greed.. because i can
garantee they would rather erase you from the face of the world than live in a utopia.

Probably. And since I live in a close-in suburb, we won't be able to provide for ourselves very well--we certainly won't be able to hunt or farm.
I guess we'll just do what we can, as people always have throughout the ages. Or we'll die. But I am not going to live in fear of that happening.
And I'm not sure how the rich paying more in taxes will prevent this from happening.

Unfortunatley the internet never forgets.... by not using everything you have to help the people around you is gonna put some large amounts of
egg on your face...

My taxes already help many people around me. Also, I give to the United Way and my church. Plus I am a member of an organization that gives back to
the local community. Every year I volunteer in the community, such as at the local soup kitchen, the Ronald McDonald house...etc. So there is
absolutely no egg on my face.

Someday all of those chinese workers are gonna have flying cars... you better hope that you didnt kill someones only love with greed.. because
i can garantee they would rather erase you from the face of the world than live in a utopia.

Hm....not sure what to do with that one, but it did make me laugh. Some angry Chinese people in flying cars....coming to Georgia to hunt down that
rogue teacher who wrote that post on ATS about taxes...great mental picture.

If 1% of Americans owns 40% of all the wealth and the top 20% own 90% of everything then of course they pay more total dollars in taxes; but, they pay
a smaller percentage of their money in taxes. We cannot of course expect the 15% that live in poverty to pay 15% of all taxes. Looking beyond income
we have to consider that a very small percentage own everything and it doesn't show as income, it is owned by trusts that pay even less in income.

The real issue is not just income inequality it is about democracy. Do we really want to live in a third world nation where the game is rigged and it
is. The purpose of democracy (Aristotle explains it) is to make a governmental system be for the benefit of the majority and ours is not. You cannot
claim that the system is fair when the people who make the highest income are allowed to engage in insider trading and are rewarded for doing a poor
job. When a CEO gets multi-million dollar bonuses as the company goes bankrupt, the system is unfair. We are not rewarding people for being inventive,
we are rewarding people for being connected.

Of course they do.. what does that matter?
If you pay 100,000 out of a million dollar check then you are going to pay the majority.
Still doesn't make it fair that someone making 580 pay check (7.25 minimum wage) should have to pay 100 dollars out of their check.

I think your reading the graph wrong...it shows the 6-10% paid 10.65% in 2006 if the percent was on the left side then it shows that the bottom 50%
paid 100% taxes. The top 1% paid the most in 2006 with 39.89%.

The U.S. tax system is highly progressive. The top 1 percent of income earners paid 40 percent of all federal income taxes in 2006,

So there is no way in earth they paid 70%. Ohhh sorry you was adding them together my bad

Originally posted by Laokin
.If it's not a lack of understanding in math, then there was a clear agenda with this thread which means you know exactly what you did.

So I'm going to presume you've made a naive mistake, rather than to jump to the conclusion that this thread is part of a conspiracy itself.

However, it can only be one or the other. There is no third option.

You presume that Im either stupid or part of a conspiracy and there is no third option. But there is: I dont really believe that rich people should be
taxed disproportionately more because I believe in not punishing success.

Right, but other peoples success effectively punishes other would would be successes in your world.

The rich are being taxed disproportionally now. They are being under taxed.

Isn't it reward enough to be a millionaire? Oh so I see, you reward a millionaire for being a millionaire by allowing him to accrue more millions by
paying a smaller tax percent?

Of course it is about "democracy". Were it about the republic for which the Constitution stands then "income inequality" would be a moot point,
and every individual under that republic should be free to negotiate their own terms of contract and all who earn income have the absolute right to
maintain private records or no records at all of these earnings and have the reasonable expectation of keeping their income intact and only paying
taxes on any actual liability as opposed to paying taxes merely on a presumption of liability.

In order to truly justify the income tax it necessarily has to incite class warfare so that the "income tax" can be sold as a method of dealing with
"income inequality", but in order to sell that scheme we have to first agree that we are lawfully bound to do whatever it is the majority tells us
we have to do, which is not at all how law works under U.S. Constitutional government. The majority cannot grant themselves lawful authority to
abrogate and derogate the rights of a minority, and this is why the United States is a republic and not a democracy, regardless of what Aristotle
say's about the matter.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.